HIV travel ban to be lifted

In the next few weeks, Congress could – finally, some would say – abolish a 1987 law banning immigrants who are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from coming to the United States. Under the rule, called the Helms Amendment, HIV is the only disease that necessarily excludes an immigrant from entrance into the country. Any other “communicable disease of public health significance,” such as leprosy or tuberculosis, is left to the discretion of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

It may seem a legal relic, but arbitrarily denying citizenship has been the norm in the history of U.S. immigration law, discriminating based on religion, health and ethnicities.

A 45-day comment period began June 26 on the proposal to eliminate HIV from the list blocking immigrants from entering our borders. Once the comment period has expired and all comments have been reviewed, the Department of Health and Human Services could make the repeal final.

“We are one important step closer to finally ending this discriminatory ban once and for all,” Joe Solmonese, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, said in a release on June 26. As of early July, 12,000 people have sent a message to the Department of Health and Human Services through the Human Rights Campaign Web site, said Trevor Thomas, Deputy Director of Communications.

There will be a rally to support the lifting of the ban on Aug. 16 at Peace Arch Park in Blaine, Wash., which will include several speakers and live music.

In the history of U.S. immigration, quotas, the color of one’s skin and faith have all played roles in deciding whether immigrants can be granted citizenship. Current regulations, as well as verbiage from the not-so-distant past, is surprisingly isolating in nature and tone.

In 1982 the U.S. Supreme Court voted to affirm (but just barely) a Texas district court’s decision rendering it unconstitutional for the state to withhold funding to educate the children of illegal immigrants. In a 5-4 vote, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. wrote the majority opinion, which said illegal immigrants could claim the benefits of the Equal Protection Clause because:

An alien is a “person” in any ordinary sense of that term.

Justice Warren Earl Burger authored the dissent, including the following language:

Apart from compassionate considerations, the long-range costs of excluding any children from the public schools may well outweigh the costs of educating them.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 29 percent of all immigrants fail to complete high school, compared with just 7.5 percent of U.S. natives.

Less than 100 years ago, citizenship law and the language of the court were even more glaring in their exclusivity. In 1922 an American woman who married an Asian man would lose her U.S. citizenship under the Expatriation Act. And in 1923 the U.S. Supreme Court denied citizenship to Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind, who had come to the U.S. from India as a student. Justice George Sutherland wrote the majority opinion, excerpted here:

The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry.

It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today; . . .

The proposal to eliminate HIV as a disease that automatically rejects an immigrant from obtaining U.S. citizenship seems a solid step forward in rectifying the harmful legal language of the past. But legislators, at both the state and federal level, must continue to fight to undo past damage.